Multicultural Counseling
We all contain multitudes.
“I am an expression of the divine, just like a peach is, just like a fish is. I have a right to be this way...I can't apologize for that, nor can I change it, nor do I want to...We will never have to be other than who we are in order to be successful...We realize that we are as ourselves unlimited and our experiences valid. It is for the rest of the world to recognize this, if they choose.”
― Alice Walker, The Color Purple
The Importance of (and Urgent Need for) Multicultural Counseling
Historically, the field of mental health counseling and psychotherapy, or “talk therapy,” was created by upper-class, white men of European descent, for other upper-class, white folks of European descent.
The thing is, no one is immune from mental health challenges and there’s an urgent need for psychology and counseling to be intersectional, inclusive, and culturally competent for all identities and backgrounds. Especially for those whose identities don’t match the dominant culture.
Everyone deserves a safe and trusted space to be open and vulnerable, and to be fully, unapologetically, themselves.
Your identity is unique and multifaceted.
Areas of identity that we may explore and how they relate to the greater context of society:
Race
Ethnicity
Social class
Gender
Age
Sexuality
Ability
Religion and faith
Body size
Mental and physical health can be worse for those whose identities don’t align with the dominant culture.
According to the the Minority Stress Model and Intersectional theories, mental and physical health outcomes are often worse for those whose identities don’t conform to what is centered and accepted by the dominant culture and society.
This is why mental health counseling for folx with minority identities is crucial.
We are all socialized into certain cultures. You get to decide which parts of these cultural belief systems still work for you, and which don’t.
Through this work we may address:
Systems of power and oppression and how they impact your life.
How micro- and macro-aggressions impact you on a mind, body, spirit and soul level.
How intergenerational patterns, beliefs, and trauma affect you.
How familial and cultural pain, beliefs, and patterns live inside our bodies and replicate unless they are intentionally brought to consciousness and readjusted.
The fight-flight-freeze-fawn safety responses.
Deconstructing your values and beliefs versus what you have absorbed from culture, society and systems in which you were raised.
Where you have power and agency to make different choices.
How you may want to live, work, and love differently based on these new understandings.
